“It’s everybody’s trouble, Varney, not just yours. I’ve been here over two hundred years now, and I’m not going to sit back and hide while everybody else protects me.”
Fastitocalon leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes. His fingers were still bothering him, and he was uncomfortably aware of having poured rather more energy into Halethorpe than he had necessarily meant to. “Could we possibly have the hero argument later?” he said. “Or preferably never. ‘Never’ works for me. We’ll have to do this in an organized fashion, given the danger the rectifier poses; we need to deal with that first. I think that once the object that’s transmitting the influence is physically destroyed, its power over them will cut off, but getting to it in the first place is going to be challenging.”
“I’m coming, too,” said Cranswell. All of them turned to look at him.
“No you’re not,” said Ruthven. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re staying the hell out of this.”
“I mean it,” Cranswell said, the levity gone from his voice. “I’m pretty sure you guys can thrall me to the point where I don’t know what the fuck’s going on and keep me here while you take the opportunity to go play self-sacrifice tennis under the city, but, Ruthven, I’m telling you right now that if you do that, any trust I have in you is gone. Any trust my family has in you. That’s what, two, three generations of friendship you’re gonna throw away? How much of that do you have to spare?”
Ruthven clawed his hands through his hair, completely disarranging it for the first time Fastitocalon could remember seeing. He looked bleak and old, much older than usual. Under the tangle of black hair he had no color in his face at all except the silver of his eyes. “Ugh,” he said. “Damn everything in the universe to hell. All right. You can be part of this, but you do not get to go up against those lunatics alone in unprotected hand-to-hand combat.”
“Hopefully no one will have to,” Fastitocalon said. “The first thing to do is to find the rectifier. Find it and break it, or turn it off, or whatever we can do to kill the light and the power it’s putting out. I don’t care how determined you might be, Ruthven. You aren’t going to be able to do much of anything after you get in direct line of sight to that source.”
“What about silk?”
All three of them turned to Cranswell once again. “What do you mean, what about silk?” Ruthven asked.
“It’s an insulator.” He shrugged. “Don’t you guys ever read any proper occult mythology? I’ve seen it more than once. The Sidhe can touch iron if it’s wrapped in silk, although they don’t like it much, and in a bunch of the stories it’s the same deal with weres and silver. I’m not gonna say that a silk veil is necessarily capable of stopping UV from doing bad shit to you, but it might cut down the effects for long enough for you to get in smashing range.”
There was a brief silence.
“What a useful person you are, to be sure,” said Fastitocalon with genuine appreciation, looking from Cranswell to the others. “He’s right. The silk thing. We often use it if we have to touch anything significantly holy, and I’m fairly certain Above does the same thing with infernal artifacts. I ought to have thought of it myself.”
“Next question,” said Varney. “Where do we get hold of silk veils? I fear the current state of ladies’ fashion does not allow for Dr. Helsing’s wardrobe to offer much, even if she were willing to sacrifice a ball gown or two.”
“I’ve got silk sheets somewhere,” Ruthven said, waving a hand. “The dining room net curtains are silk, too. Yards of the stuff, no problem there.” He gave an off-kilter little hiccup of laughter, covering his mouth hurriedly.
Varney raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, “just the mental image of wandering around tunnels wearing a bedsheet like a grimly traditional ghost is rather an astonishing one. I’d feel the need to rattle chains and gibber.”
“Let’s focus,” said Cranswell. “Okay, so, you guys get draped in as much silk as we can find, we go down there—figuring out some way to get in without being noticed—and we go find the thing and break it. Vampires don’t get mercury poisoning, do they?”
“I’ve no idea,” Ruthven said. “Meanwhile the other occupants of the tunnels are somehow distracted, yes?”
“Yes,” said Fastitocalon. “I think I may be capable of providing sufficient distraction. Briefly, anyway.” He rubbed at his tingling hand, hoping he was right about that. “I’m almost sure that once the vessel’s broken, they are likely to collapse and pose no further threat.”
The way he said it got a curious look from Cranswell, but no questions.
Silence fell for a moment. “When are we going to do this?” Ruthven asked. “I’m inclined to suggest that any expeditions be undertaken after dark.”
“Well,” said Varney, “we know that they are active at night. But given their previous behavior, it’s likely that several if not the majority of the—I keep wanting to call them monks, although I seriously doubt they have taken holy orders that would be recognized by any proper church—will be busy doing terrible things on the surface, leaving their headquarters relatively unguarded. And I agree. Access will be much easier after dark.”
“There’s still the question of sneaking into this place. This bomb shelter.” Cranswell tapped his fingers on the table. “Two super-pale guys with weird eyes—one grey Edward Murrow–looking person in a vintage suit, and one regular human—are going to be pretty noticeable trying to climb down manholes or whatever, even at night. Can you do that don’t-notice-me thing for all of us?” he asked, turning to Fastitocalon. “Like at the museum?”
“Not for very long, I’m afraid. And I need to try to keep as much strength in reserve as possible so I can use it for distraction-creating purposes.” He had rarely been quite so annoyed at his own limitations.
“We’ll wait for nightfall before we make a move,” said Ruthven.
Fastitocalon looked from him to Varney, reflecting that Cranswell wasn’t wrong: two super-pale guys with weird eyes. Of all the people he could have selected to accompany him in a highly dangerous activity involving a powerful source of ultraviolet radiation, a couple of vampires ranked near the very bottom of the list.
“Yes,” he said. “In the meantime, I suggest you and Sir Francis have supper; you’ll need all the strength you can get.”